It’s all a matter of personal responsibility. I was watching a talk show on women using guns. The Joe Walsh show, I think. The guests and discussion went well. As they all sparred, it became obvious that the argument against legally having personal guns was that people can’t be trusted to be responsible. The pro- argument was mostly that the world is a dangerous place so we have to defend ourselves….. against those people that don’t use guns responsibly. The topic came up about children shooting each other in America. They didn’t talk directly about it but, by their nature, children’s level of responsibility generally isn’t high enough to allow them to have guns. For a few minutes, this felt like a closed issue in my mind… Adults can have guns because they’re responsible, children can’t. And then, after all of this reasonably intelligent debate, the anti-gun woman said (in her heated, angry, black sista, head-bobbin’, Jerry Springer way). “If I had a gun and I was angry at you, I might shoot you!”

Wow, she shouldn’t have a gun. Ever. Her whole gun control stance suddenly boiled down to the fact that she has impulse control issues and assumes (maybe rightly, maybe not) that lots of other people have these same issues. She wants the government to protect her from herself. She refuses (or is perhaps unable) to take personal responsibility for her being.